I'm excited to share with you my first ever full Christmas home tour! I did get a little bit of a jump start on my Christmas decorating last month in my living room that you can see here! Can you believe where all that gorgeous stuff was from?! You may notice during this tour that I use the same themes throughout - red, black, plaid, flocked, and simple. When decorating an open concept area, using the same theme will keep the flow of the room harmonious and consistent.

What Rose Knows was given the Be Our Guest print for this post, however all opinions are my own.

It's been a very slow process getting wall art and anything else for that matter up on the walls in our house. We've been living in our new home 4 months now and the only rooms that have anything up on the walls is the open concept living room and kitchen. I'm still getting a feel for our new home and the last thing that I want to do is put stuff up on the walls that I don't absolutely love.

Before I start working on any other rooms in the house though, my goal is to get our guest room finished before guests start arriving for the holidays. I want to create a retreat type space for our guests to relax and more importantly feel welcome in our home.

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.#BIGSeason #BigLots #CollectiveBias

I know, I know. It's only the second week of November and my Christmas tree is up. What Rose Knows is here to inspire you though so I got a head start on my Christmas decor - only 3 weeks earlier than normal for me. This is just phase 1 for me and oh how I love how phase 1 turned out! Being in a new house this year I had some ideas in mind for new Christmas decor but I hadn't gone shopping yet. I don't mind trends when it comes to holiday decor, as long as it's high quality, and this year I did in fact go with what's on trend - which happens to be plaid.

Ok guys, it's been over 3 months now that we've had our white IKEA EKTORP sofa and love seat so it's time for me to do a review. I know our friends and family probably thought we were a little nuts to have white furniture in our living room, and honestly I had no idea how they would hold up, but as affordable as these two pieces are ($399 for the sofa, $379 for the love seat), it was worth a shot. Plus, I knew I could always replace the slipcovers with a different color for cheap ($49 for the sofa, $39 for the love seat).

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #PedigreeGives #CollectiveBias

Meet our rescue pup, Sam. Sam has been with us for a little over 2 years now and is one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet. We visited only two animal shelters before we found Sam. He was gentle, submissive, and although this sounds crazy, he was polite. The only information we had was that he was sent from a shelter in Chattanooga, TN to Wisconsin because they were overcrowded. The vet at the shelter in Wisconsin couldn't give us a definite answer on his breed and they gave us an approximate age of 2 years old. But shortly after we got him home and I did some digging and contacted a few breeders from down south. They came to the conclusion that he is a mixed breed with the dominant breed being Mountain Cur (tree or hunting dog). After looking at pictures of Cur dogs, I agreed. However, his easy going temperament and submissive personality did not match up with that breeds description.